The Word Cloud

In one of the weirdest marketing co-operations ever dreamed up, the website "Rate my Sausage" is running a competition for a signed copy of "The Bother in Burmeon" by S.P.Moss, aka me.

But you'll need to hurry and not get too distracted by all the lovely sausages on there - the competition closes tomorrow.

Good luck! 

Yesterday was our first ever village Book Festival. You may remember a while ago that I blogged to ask for help with competition ideas. Well, thanks to all the Cloudie help I received, the competitions were a resounding success (as was the day in general) and we're already talking about what lessons we have learned this year ready for next year - we must be mad!

So, thanks to all of you who replied with suggestions and special thanks to Barb who allowed me to use her book covers competition, Whisks who constructed some fantastic book title anagrams and Geri who photo-shopped some extra book covers for me. You're all stars :-D

This is my British Silent Film Festival special. It will be short and, to be honest, uninformative.
I was at the first day of the 15th British Silent Film Festival which took place last week, finances prevented me from attending more than one day which was a pity because that day alone was brilliant. Including shorts I watched ten films and was introduced to a new writer in Lydia Hayward.
Hayward wrote the first film of the festival, a light comedy called A Bachelor's Baby. The film was based on a novel by Roy Bennett but it rises above it's source material into a subtle, sweet and extremely funny story that has more than a hint of the great P. G. Wodehouse. Hayward is best known for her similarly toned adaptations of W. W. Jacobs' hugely popular stories directed by H. Manning Haynes. The pair made a total of eleven films based on Jacobs' stories during the twenties and early thirties and they have become festival favourites. This year A Will and a Way and The Boatswain's Mate were shown and were probably the highlights of my single day there.
Hayward enjoyed a 22 year career in cinema mostly working in the same lightly comic vein.
And that's all I've got. Sure if I were to hit the libraries etc I could find more but from pure internet research in the time I can spare to write this, that's the sum total of what I could find about Lydia Hayward. I don't even know when she died. Come to think of it, I can't be 100% sure she's dead. So I'm afraid she's added to the growing list of writer's I've talked about here about whom I wish I knew more and who I will look out for in the future. What I can say, based on three films, is that Lydia Hayward had a real talent for screen adaptation and light comedy, particularly in the challenging medium of silent film, if you spot a film with her name on it (and she was active into the 40s so it's not impossible) give it a watch.

Girlfriend’s birthday tomorrow so I need a suitable present (book) pronto – she’s 22 and into criminal profiling (has every series of Criminal Minds on DVD)...anyone recommend any psychological crime tales that I could probably get from Waterstones? Left it too late for Amazon...Thanks J

No one reads short stories any more. Well, not if we're to believe the mainstream publishers, they don't.  Single Author collections are rare indeed. Yet people still love writing them.

In his introduction to Alice Monro's superb collection 'Runaway', Jonathan Franzen speaks up for the Cinderella of fiction, saying...I like stories because they leave the writer no place to hide.
He  names literary giants like John Updike and William Trevor, fine novelists, but 'who seem to me most at home, most undilutedly themselves in their shorter work.'

I would agree, and I think this is because the short form allows writers freedom to explore. We don't have to worry about categories or target readership. We write what we must, and who knows where the stuff comes from or where it's going to.

As someone who has had a few novels traditionally published, you may wonder why I'm plugging my own little collection here. Fact is, while I've been lucky enough to see many of my stories published individually, it's long been a dream to see some of them nestled together between the covers of a single volume. Yes, I know. Dream on! Then I got a Kindle for Christmas and thought...hmm...why not?

So here it is - My Life in a Nutshell - six (quite long) short stories, a good rainy weekend read and all for the price of a cup of tea! If you enjoy shorts you might fancy hitting the link below, and checking out the blurb.

Forgive the shameless self-promotion by the way. It doesn't come easy. But seeing as it's Friday, I'm hoping you might all be in a good mood!




http://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Life-Nutshell-ebook/dp/B007R4WJQK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1334926033&sr=1-1

I'm not alone on the Cloud in having a new book out there, and I'm sure I'm not alone in having spent maybe more time than necessary in the last few weeks fretting about Facebook pages, and whether I should be on Twitter, and rankings and ratings and reviews.

I read a wonderfully calming piece in "The Author" by Terence Blacker. I have attempted to find it online but no luck, so I'll quote a few snippets here. The gist of it all is that authors should worry their writerly, non-publicity-minded heads less about these things and downsize, simplify.

"First on the bonfire of trivialities will be endorsements from other authors...the familiar, shop-worn compliments ('sparkling debut''gripping yarn''an exciting new voice') are so ubiquitous that they have ceased to mean anything to writer or reader"

"The truly pure in spirit will continue their professional spring cleaning by removing from their lives any activity undertaken only for reasons of publicity...To suggest that talking to a magazine about your pets or favourite films, appearing on radio or TV chat shows or trying, like some crazed cult leader, to win 'followers' on Twitter will achieve little or nothing in terms of sales, might be deemed eccentric within publishing, but the wise author will know it is true."

"The very things that embarrass us - tatty clothes, a tendency to express impolitic opinions, a general vagueness about management or the new media - are what earn us respect within the book industry. We are authors, not would-be entrepreneurs or fame-hungry competitors in a TV reality show."

"It is the individual which matters: a good editor, a good reader, and, of course, your good self."

Phew! That does make me feel better. On the other hand, if Charlie Higson does want to endorse my book as a "gripping yarn", I won't say no! 

Hiyaa all

I have had a turbulent couple of weeks.  My Dad had a heart attack whilst I was back in Gibraltar on holiday, but luckily has made a full recovery. 

My book has had its first reviews and they certainly made me smile...I have found things to improve and errors, but I'll get there in the end. 

To all of you who gave me support I thought you'd be interested...

Thanks
Vanessa :)

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/145641?ref=islander8

With the memory of Spiski's great publication day fresh in my memory, I'm off to the London Book Fair tomorrow. I had no plans to go but I'll be there in invisible support for my daughter, who has been asked to chair a public discussion, about which she's rather nervous. While there, I plan to say a brief hello to my long-suffering agent and the editor who is currently going over my story with a fine-tooth comb.

I also found this blurb in the catalogue (including typo!) to my book and, although it's still a long way off, it's nice to know that everything is still 'on' for publication. 

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/business-centre/rights/Documents/HarperCollins LBF Guide 2012 final.pdf


 

Great news that another cloudie has been signed up with an agent today...

It's set me wondering though.

For other cloudies who've been taken on by agents; did you sign an agreement almost immediately, or was it a while before you got any paperwork? And if the latter, roughly at what point in your  journey did you make it all 'official'? 

The thing about Brooklands Museum is you tend to have to know it’s there in order to find it at all. You follow the sign for Brooklands off the last roundabout and find yourself on a road that appears to be heading straight into the Mercedes-Benz complex, as indeed it is. You continue on the road, avoiding any visitors’ car park entrances because you know you don’t want a Mercs and it takes you right round to the back of the complex to the staff car park. Not a word about Brooklands. Dauntless you carry on past the car park on an unmarked road by a canal and round a bend, lo and behold, you see Parking for Brooklands. But you’d have given up long ago if you hadn’t know it was there.

The park is very full and you have to drive a long way past the entrance to find a space. At least its free, you think, as you trudge back to the footbridge over the canal and approach the ticket office.

Aha… You notice the poster in the window about a book-signing today in ‘The Paddock’. You get your ticket, and a site plan and try to figure out the way to The Paddock, noting, conveniently, that the route takes you past the toilets. You make an unscheduled pit-stop and emerge feeling much relieved and head off past a row of garages, or Racing Lock-ups as the site plan calls them, marked Dunlop, Jackson, Shell and BP. Round the corner past the side of The Clubhouse and turn left and you get your first site a blonde vision behind a table laden with paperbacks and all sorts of Bothersome paraphernalia relating to Bermeon.

It can be none other than SecretSpi, Susan Patricia Imgrund – or S. P. Moss as it says on the book cover, and you wonder idly, as you look around at all the old racing cars in the paddock, if the S doesn’t stand for Stirling. You wait for a lull in the mad rush to buy her book – well, you hang about for a few moments while she finishes talking to someone who was passing by, and then your eyes meet, your faces break into silly grins and you both lean across the table to embrace like old friends being re-united, which in a way you are, except there’s no ‘re-’. It’s the first time you’ve met, yet you feel like old friends. It’s an experience you will repeat on many occasions throughout the day. (You don’t mean embracing Secrets, but meeting other ‘old friends’ for the first time.)

You look around and spot the man in the fedora. Got to be AlanP. And the one with the long blonde hair that he’s chatting up? None other than John Taylor (whom you’ve already met a few times, as John Onceupon. This acquaintance is renewed and you are introduced to Alan – and there’s the Pimlico Kid, alias Barry Walsh, looking as suave as his old alias would suggest.

Over the next hour or so you meet again your old pals Whisks and later, Steve, as well as finally getting up close and personal with Heidi from Andorra, Kaz from Kingston, CJ from Portsmouth (Elysia, in a previous incarnation), Athlestone with his lovely Florence, and Mike from a library somewhere in darkest London. You are told that Noodledoodle is also among those present, but is proving rather elusive. You realise later that, with three young Noodles to entertain, she has been touring the whole complex making the most of her visit. You finally run her to earth standing in the queue for a ride round the famous old banked race-track in a vintage, souped-up racer, and have a good old chin wag.

The queue for the vintage rides is conveniently close to Secret’s book-signing table, so not only are many attracted over to view the book while their place in the queue is kept for them, but even when they don’t come over there always looks like a good crowd milling around the area, which is good for business. SecretSpi tells you that she’s selling quite a few and you make that quit a few and one, asking her to sign your copy to your two eldest grandchildren who meet the age criteria perfectly.

During a lull in proceedings, while some others have taken a lead from Noodledoodle’s initiative and gone exploring, you suggest to CJ that you might follow suit. The two of you wander off in the direction of the Wellington Hangar, which is full of the most amazing early (allegedly) flying contraptions as well as later models such as a Wellington bomber that was rescued from Loch Ness, and Barnes Wallace’s ‘dam buster’ bombs.

Emerging from the far end of the hangar, CJ is saying to you, ‘My father used to be a fireman.’ A perfect stranger, who you happen to be passing at this moment, says, ‘Pardon?’ and you bemusedly stop to explain that CJ was talking to you. It emerges that the stranger had already summed up CJ as being your daughter and as she had said, ‘My father used to be a fireman,’ he had to assume that she must be talking to him! Just the sort of bizarre casual remark you make to strangers that you pass in an aviation and motor museum (apparently).

You wander on, learning as you go, how CJ’s actual father managed the transition from driving fire engines to private cars. Not very well, it would seem. You inspect the various old aircraft scattered around like life-size discarded Airfix models on a giant child’s bedroom floor. You climb the steps to board the Sultan of Oman’s (ex-) private Boeing 707 with luxury bathroom (gold basin and taps removed for safe keeping elsewhere), sleeping quarters with double bed complete with safety belt, lounge area with padded armchairs, television, telephone and stereo and a cockpit with more dials and switches than you could shake gold-plated swagger stick at.

Back at The Paddock, book sales seem to be still progressing apace and it’s time to sustain the inner man. You, CJ and three or four others pop across to the Sunbeam Café for a spot of lunch. You go for the baked potato with butter, baked beans, and brie. (It’s actually cheddar, but you go for the alliterative effect – always the writer.) With the others, you take your tray back outside to lunch alfresco in the sunshine at the picnic tables just next to where SecretSpi is developing repetitive strain injury as she continues to sign her books.

Of course it is now that the sky clouds over and when you’re only three-quarters way through your meal the rain drops are falling on your head. SecretSpi and her helpers quickly gather everything together and carry their table over to the covered entrance to the Sunbeam Café while you and a few others brave the inclement conditions rather than foregoing the remainder of your lunch. The drizzle never amounts to much at all and before long SecretSpi is set up again in the sunshine. You and several others remark what a great day it really is for the occasion.

Betwixt and between all this you are snapping away at this and that with your camera, recording it all for posterity, and SecretSpi’s publisher, Kay Green, asks if you can let her have copies, while Cloudies ask if you can capture them risking their lives in a racer – for next of kin, you suppose, if the worst were to happen. Chatting with John and Steve, they plant an idea and, with Steve’s help, you spend some further time around the museum site photographing “The Bother in Burmeon” in divers, if unlikely, positions – on the under-carriage of Concord, in the air intake of a Hawker Hunter, on the bonnet of a 1930s Austin MG and so on. It just seems to you like a good idea at the time.

But time wears on. Some clouds are again starting to drift across the sky and some Cloudies are starting to drift off homewards. The signing table is back under cover to be on the safe side and you make your way over for a final chat with S. P. Moss, the heroine of the hour, who has remained valiantly smiling throughout; a sterling effort. ( A Stirling effort you think, facetiously?) You take your leave, as you have been doing with various others, with a ready hope of renewing acquaintances at other such occasions. You wish SecretSpi all the best and hope she’ll soon be able to relax a bit. Her smile never wavers.

You meander back the way you came, bumping into Mike once more and offering him a lift to Weybridge station to catch his train, and Mike being Mike is perfectly happy to walk. So with a final farewell, you leave the museum and a plethora of happy memories and a general feeling of bonhomie towards The WordCloud, all Cloudies everywhere and to SecretSpi in particular. You glance at her name on the book you are carrying and wonder, just fleetingly, if she could be the secret love-child of a racing driver.